The Shadows That Be
by MarkHunter
Summary: Will has always been held back by the Shadows he sees and feels surround him. His life, does not feel like his own-until he meets Sonny a mysterious stranger who may help him shed light on the problem and free Will from the Shadow's grip. As their relationship deepens, their bond strengthens, but the Shadows are just be the beginning of a dangerous and powerful force.


Will followed his grandmother into the small local art gallery. He wasn't there for the art, like she was. He was hoping he could figure out a way to finally talk to her about his…unique difficulties.

Today might finally be the day.

She'll think you're crazy, a voice inside whispered. She's the licensed therapist and what if she said this was a real mental break down? Would they send him away? Maybe he wanted to be sent away. Maybe they could fix it.

But like every time he opened his mouth to speak about it, his specific troubles, no words would form. He found himself talking about other things, usually whatever was going on with his dysfunctional parents or other family members. Anyone but himself. Anything but what he wanted to ask her about.

He gave up. Again.

The gallery owner called his grandmother over and Will wandered over to the corner and began to study an interesting painting on the wall. He liked the painting, the way he could feel the wind that was pushing the sailboat along. He could almost smell the ocean and he looked deep into the artwork at the promise of the endless horizon. Nothing but limitless possibilities.

Two other patrons entered the gallery, and Will turned to see. An older gentleman who walked in and commanded the immediate attention of a gallery lackey, and was with the most handsome guy Will had ever laid eyes on.

Handsome? Will surprised himself by thinking this. But it was true. His dark eyes and dark hair and easy smile won Will over instantly.

He watched the two of them-Great Uncle and grand-nephew, it turned out. Will tried to fix his eyes on him and watch the young man move—he had an adorable sort of shuffle, and he carried himself so confidently when he spoke. Adorable? Will thought his shuffle was adorable? He mentally shrugged, and his eyes kept snapping back to the the painting or to the ground.

I have to…meet him, thought Will. Meet him is the only the beginning of what I want to do with him.

And yet, he couldn't will himself to get over there. He couldn't make himself go talk to him. He couldn't even maintain a steady stream of starring so he could catch his eye.

Why?

Will stood as if his feet were nailed to the ground in front of the painting. He thought when the guy—about his age, Will figured—came over to stand in front of the same wall of paintings as he was that he could make some sort of move.

How hard would it be? All he'd have to say is, "I like this one," or something small and the guy might take pity and talk back. Still no words would come.

Will chastised himself as he stared at the artwork instead of the brunette who now moved almost to his side. Why was Will attracted to him anyway? His internal voice, practically shouted at him, it made no sense.

But this guy made him feel something in his core that no girl had ever made him feel. This guy made Will feel that every breathe he had ever taken up to this moment was for the sole purpose of keeping him alive to meet HIM.

And yet he could not speak. The words would not form. It was like his throat was coated, heavy with molasses and his tongue was stuck. His throat coated with thick, black…shadows. His tongue firmly pinned down by them.

The shadows. The problem he always had. The problem he couldn't talk about even with his grandmother.

Soon the older gentleman motioned the man over and they left. The sound of the gallery door's little shop bell echoing in Will's ears, almost painfully.

Only then with him gone could Will move, did the shadows loosen their grip and yet he still just stood there, alone. More alone than ever.

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Since he was very little he could see the shadows. It was like someone had taken a black crayon and roughly outlined the people he loved. Mom, Dad, Grandma. Aunts, Uncles, cousins. He had it, too, of course. He wore it like a second skin, like a little black cloud that engulfed him, attached to him.

Not everyone had it, he realized. The store clerks, the waitresses at the family pub, the other little kids he played with. These, the extra people in his life, besides his family, almost never had the black shadows on them.

"I wish it wasn't black sometimes," four year old Will told his mom. "I wish the shadows were blue, my favorite color."

And she had thought he meant regular shadows. Those things on the ground, or the bunny shapes his dad made for him at night sometimes when his fingers formed into a sort of peace sign.

"You're adorable," she said. And he couldn't make her understand.

When he was seven he remembered that he tried again to explain it to his mom, but she didn't get it. He tried with his Great Grandma Caroline because she was old and she must know everything. She asked Will if he thought he was seeing people's auras.

"Some people talk about that," she said. "They see a color that people can radiate."

"No, Great Gram. This is always black. And it's only certain people. Like me. And mom. And you."

He doesn't remember what she said after that, only that she seemed upset and hugged him tightly and told him that she loved him, and he was special and wonderful and he was going to make good choices and find happiness and maybe some other things like that.

Yes, no one else, no one, seemed to realize the shadows were even there. Will just realized he was unique in this way, for good or for bad. To ask or talk about it, only seemed to confuse or upset people when he was little. So he stopped and never tried when he was older.

Only sometimes, the shadows weren't there. As he got older, as a teenager, he realized how amazing those times were. When he didn't have the shadows on him, which was an infrequent occurrence, he could feel remarkably better. He felt clean, and light. He felt level headed and sane, for lack of a better word. But Will would never get to use to it, because sure enough the shadows would creep back around him and life would go on as it did before.

And Will's life was not that amazing. He hated being at home-his mother and father, now divorced, had a terrible relationship, and frankly his mother had become the most self-obsessed person he knew. He never knew when she would be home or what she would be doing with whom.

At school he always felt odd or slightly off among his peers. He knew they whispered about him; he knew they mumbled that he was messed up, that his family must have really done a number on him. "Weird," they called him. "Mentally ill" they said. "Freak," was the whisper he would hear when he walked down the halls. Maybe there were people who tried to talk to him, but he usually ended up scowling at them, or staring blankly at them. Maybe there had been people who tried to be his friend, in the beginning, but he always somehow kept them at a distance. He never let them get too close.

"How can they?" he thought hopelessly. "There is always a big black shadow between us?"

Will knew very few things about himself, he decided. He knew he had these shadows and that he wished they would go away and never reappear. But he didn't know why he sometimes did the things he did, or said the things he said. And he didn't know why he couldn't do some things he really, really wanted to do.

More than anything he wanted things to change.

Yet every day remained the same. He didn't know if they ever would change. It had been about a half a year already since that day in the art gallery when he realized what he might want. And that even when what he wants is standing right next to him there was nothing he could do about it.

How about when what you want walks right into your family pub? Could he do something about it then?


End file.
